GI Brides

by Grace Livingston Hill

  Of course her mother, normally, would be the one, the only confidante she had ever had. But how could her mother judge aright in this thing? She would be too horrified by the unknown. Charlie would mean nothing to her now but a menace. She would not at first realize what a difference death made in the conventions of the world. Even if it was only a rendezvous and didn’t reach a final end, it did make a difference, and by and by when this matter of pleasing Mrs. Seavers was past, she was sure it would all be perfectly understood by her mother. Anyway, it wasn’t really hers to tell—yet. It was their precious secret, hers and Charlie’s.

  All these things flashed through her mind like a message she was reading to herself, while her mother talked on.

  And then her mother, watching her daughter’s changing expressions, finally dropped wearily into a chair and said, “Oh Blythe! What is the matter with you? It is not like you to be so regardless of others’ needs. Why will you not give the help you can so easily give? If you could have seen his poor mother!”

  Suddenly Blythe put on a resolute look.

  “Why, of course, Mother, I’ll do all I can to influence Dan for the right things, but you don’t seem to understand that he practically wants to own me, to order me around, and insist I shall go whenever he commands.”

  “Oh my dear! I don’t think he means it that way. He just likes you very much, and really wants your company.”

  Blythe’s face grew serious.

  “Well, perhaps,” she said hesitantly. “But tonight I didn’t want to go, and I felt I had a right to say no. Bedsides, Mother, people are beginning to talk as if Dan and I were engaged and we’re not. I don’t want people to get that idea! I don’t like to be watched and talked about!”

  “Nonsense!” said her mother. “Nobody is talking about you. That’s just a sign you’re getting self-centered. I don’t believe anybody has ever thought of such a thing.”

  “Yes, they have,” said Blythe firmly. “I heard them myself today as I was going into the Red Cross room.”

  “You heard someone talking about you? Who in the world would dare to do that?”

  “Oh, it was only Anne Houghton, and she’s always been disagreeable and jealous, but she was talking to Mrs. Bruce, and she assented to everything Anne said, and I just felt as if I wanted to get out and get away from them all. I won’t desert the work I’ve promised to do for the war. But I do think I’d rather not go out quite so much with Dan. Oh, I’ll go sometimes, of course, but please don’t urge me when you see I’d rather not.”

  “Why, of course not, dear,” said her mother anxiously, “but I wish you would tell me what they said that has made you feel so uncomfortable.”

  “Oh, Anne was just saying that I thought I was so great because I had Dan Seavers tagging around with me everywhere, that I wouldn’t let him out of my sight, and things like that. Mother, I don’t like to be talked about that way. It takes all the joy out of life.”

  “Well, of course it isn’t pleasant,” said her mother thoughtfully. “But, after all, that wasn’t such a dreadful thing for her to say. She’s probably jealous. Maybe she admires him herself very much. However, I don’t want to urge you to do anything that does not seem pleasant to you.”

  “Thank you, Mother dear,” said Blythe, coming over to her mother and kissing her tenderly, and as she stood so with her mother’s arms about her, she felt a quick impulse to tell her all about Charlie Montgomery. And perhaps she would have done so, except that her father came in just then with some news about the war that he had just heard, and the time seemed again not to be just right for the story. Perhaps she should wait and think it over a little more, plan out in her mind just how she would make them understand what kind of a boy Charlie had always been, introduce him to them as it were, bit by bit, so that they would see the beauty and tenderness of his nature. So that they would not be shocked by the abruptness of what he had done in telling her, an almost stranger, that he loved her.

  Then her father turned on the radio and there came a session of reports of what had been going on in some of the war zones: men sent on secret missions behind the enemy lines to get certain information and to spy out the enemy’s plans; others flying straight into death to accomplish some great necessary destruction of the enemy’s works. They were almost like a suicide squad.

  Blythe caught her breath, and one small hand flew to her throat involuntarily.

  “Oh!” she breathed softly under her breath, and looked aghast at her father and her mother. But they were not noticing her then. They were only looking pitiful and sad over the terrible state of the world in these wartimes, never dreaming that one of those young men whom they were distantly pitying might be the lad their cherished daughter loved, and who was even now hastening on to such a death somewhere. “A secret mission” he had called it. Oh, was this what he was going to do? Blythe did not know, could not know, perhaps would never know till the war was all over and the missing ones were counted up.

  So, the moment passed, with Blythe’s heart suddenly overwhelmed with understanding, and a terrible sadness settling down upon her which kept her silent. Then suddenly they were all roused to realize that it was getting late and the morrow had duties early in the morning. So they said good night and hurried away to their rest.

  Back in her own room, Blythe settled down in her chair, her knees still weak from that sudden startled realization of Charlie’s peril. She looked about her. Was it only this morning that she had gone downstairs to hear him tell her that he loved her? It seemed that she had lived years since the morning dawned and she went happily down to pleasant duties, without a thought that this war was coming into her life. Really coming. Not just by forcing her to go without a few luxuries, doing a few unusual things, economizing—less candy and sugar and coffee, fewer beefsteaks, walking miles instead of using her car. The war had struck to the center of her being now, through the boy she had watched over the years and greatly admired, and who had suddenly become beloved beyond anything that had ever touched her life before.

  For some time she sat there quietly and relaxed in her chair, trying to think it all out.

  And would the morrow bring her a letter? No, for that would scarcely be possible. Her soldier had said all mail would have to go to headquarters before it could be forwarded to her, that is, after they had really started on their mission. And now that she was beginning to understand a little what terrible possibilities loomed before such missions, her heart trembled at the thought.

  But oh, how she longed to get a word from him, his handwriting written to her! How wonderful that was going to be! A letter from Charlie Montgomery, all her own! She must get to sleep to hurry on another day, to bring that letter nearer to her.

  Quietly, with her light turned out because she didn’t want her mother to come in and ask her what was keeping her up, she got ready for sleep and, creeping into her bed, lay thinking over all that had happened since morning. But though she had been good friends with Dan Seavers for years, not one thought of him came to spoil her bright vision.

  Chapter 6

  Charlie Montgomery, back in his train again, his heart warm with the sound of his dear girl’s voice, tried to settle down and compose himself for rest, for he knew the journey ahead was likely to be strenuous the next day. But the joy surging over him was like a bright sunshine shining in his face, and how could he sleep when he could bask in its warmth and brightness? To think that wonderful girl was really his beloved, at least for the little time he had ahead to live. And, after all, that was all that anybody had of joys, for death might be waiting just around the corner anywhere for anybody.

  But somehow since he had talked with Blythe, and begun to sense all the joy that life might have held for him if he had not committed himself to this war enterprise, the whole thing took on a gloomier aspect. The exaltation of willingly giving himself to a great duty seemed suddenly to have faded, and his heart was beginning to cry out to have it all done with, to go back, and live like a n
ormal human being.

  With a sudden closing of his firm young lips, he straightened up and took himself to task. This would not do. The preciousness of what had come to pass for him must not be allowed to spoil the greatness of the undertaking to which he was committed. He must not allow himself to sink into gloom over this. He must go smiling to the doom he firmly expected, and he must not falter.

  All his life Charlie Montgomery had had to be doing something like this. Even as a child, his father and his mother had wisely trained him to know that his first concern should be to conquer himself. His father once told him that half the battle was won if he once was sure he could conquer himself. His mother taught him that this must also be done at no expense to the gentleness and beauty that was meant to shine in his life, but that he must learn to put his own wishes and plans aside, lay them away carefully in his heart, if there was something else that ought to come first. So, now, as he thought things over, he could almost hear his mother’s voice saying, “First things first, son, and don’t let personal wishes cloud over the brightness of your judgment or make your will waver in what you ought to do. The precious things of life can wait. They will not perish. There will come a time, either here or hereafter, when their beauty will be yours in all fullness.”

  Yes, those words of hers were graven on his heart, and he wished with great longing that she might be here now, that he could tell her about Blythe and see the look of love in her eyes as she understood. For she would have understood, he knew. She had been like that.

  But Mother had God. He was very real to her, and she drew great stores of wisdom and strength from Him. And he did not have God. At least, he had never consciously drawn much strength from any slight contact he had had with his Creator. Oh, he used to go regularly to church in the days when his father and mother always went. And he went through the form of joining the church when he was quite young. He had been brought up to read his Bible and pray every day when he was a child, and he had eagerly taken in the Bible stories then. But somehow they had never taken hold of him, and he had never drawn any help from his connection with the Almighty. He supposed now, with death in the offing so definitely, that perhaps he ought to do something about this. But he wasn’t quite sure how to go about it. He hadn’t for a long time read his Bible, and it had never meant much to him. Prayer had been a sort of routine, a formality. Not a definite coming of his soul into the conscious presence of the Most High. Well, he ought to do something about that before he reached the end. Perhaps if they stopped at some camp for a day or so he could look up some chaplain and ask a few questions, sort of get him to intercede with God for him, for his soul that was so soon to go out at the end of this life. Since his mother wasn’t here to do it, surely he could find someone to pray for him, though to tell the truth, his idea of chaplains was that most of them were more or less what the fellows called “stuffed shirts.” However, perhaps there would be an exception, and he must make that a definite engagement, to look up some contact with God before he finally left.

  So, having settled that, he composed himself to rest. He told himself that at least until he reached the next stopping place he might allow himself the dear privilege of thinking exclusively about Blythe, just as if he might be coming back someday to her. No, that wouldn’t do, for the letdown would be too great when he remembered the present duties of life. He must not get a gloomy slant on what he had to do. He could never do good work in any way if he was filled with personal gloom. But at least he could rejoice in her attitude toward him, in her precious words, the look in her dear eyes, her smile, and her voice over the telephone.

  Sinking into sleep with these thoughts in his heart, the night was amazingly brief, and waking in the morning, it came to him sharply that he was another day nearer to his doom.

  Soon after breakfast the train halted at a station and took on a lot of soldiers, also quite a number of officers. Some of the officers were most distinguished-looking men. About midmorning Charlie was summoned to an audience with the officer he had been advised would give him more definite instruction in what was before him.

  Charlie had written a letter to Blythe that he had mailed at the time he had last telephoned her. And now as he returned to his seat after his interview with the officer, he reflected that he was glad he had done so; for he had learned, among other things, that hereafter, while he was in this special service, all communications with the outside world would have to pass through the censor. It gave him the feeling that from now on they were in the eye of the public, and they might not exchange their precious intimate thoughts, for which circumstances had given them so far little opportunity. The great separation had begun! Only the most impersonal matters might be discussed from now on, and of course, a little later, he might have no assurance that he could write at all.

  With all these things in mind he had made that letter a kind of added farewell, a summing up of all the matters they had not had time to discuss. So now as he thought about it, he prepared to write even another letter. Just a brief one now. One that he wouldn’t mind having any censor see. Blythe would understand, of course. It gave him a kind of a hopeless feeling. War! War! Why was it?

  Yet he must not go out to a duty such as his with a feeling like that in his heart. He must somehow find a chaplain and get into conversation with him. Surely a man who had come out to war on God’s service would be able to clearly point him the way to God. But though he searched through the train several times, he did not find a man to whom he felt drawn enough to seek help from him.

  Just what was he looking for? he asked himself. A saint? An angel? A man with a holy face? No, that wasn’t what he wanted. He tried as he stood at the front end of the train where he had a good view of all the faces he saw, to think what he was searching for, and he decided it must be a man with a face of quiet wisdom and strength, a man with a happy face, as if he were possessed of something that ordinary people lacked, yet wise and true and tender, even when merry-hearted. Was there any man like that in the train, or in the army anywhere? There ought to be a great many. If there were any such men in the whole wide world who had something real to impart to men who were going out to die, they ought to be in the army.

  He got to talking to another soldier, and they touched on the topic that was on Charlie’s mind.

  “Yes, I’ve seen one or two like that,” said the soldier who was a private, and owned that he was scared—afraid—to die. “Of course, there are a few great ones, like the man we had at the first camp I was sent to. He was swell. He really believed all he said, and he knew how to put it so you found yourself believing it, too. I wish I could have stayed there long enough to have gotten all his dope. I heard he was going out to visit different camps, and believe me, he was really popular with the fellows. He used to talk about Jesus Christ as if he had really met Him, as if he knew Him kind of intimately, you know, and when he preached you could see it all acted out there before you, like it was a play. You felt as if you had been there and seen the miracles done. I really was sore when we had to leave him. But I heard he was going around to other camps preaching. Perhaps we’ll run into him yet somewhere. His name is Silverthorn. If you get a chance to hear him, don’t miss it. He gives you great stuff! You feel like you’ve met God after he gets through talking.”

  Charlie stood a long time talking to this young private who had evidently been so deeply impressed by this preacher.

  “I’ll hunt him up,” said Charlie, “if I ever get within hearing distance of him.”

  After that, because his heart was sick and sore with longing for the love he had found and lost so soon, Charlie went back to his belongings, hunted out pen and paper, and wrote another brief note.

  Dearest:

  I’ve just heard of a man who preaches real things and might tell one how to die courageously. I want to be more than just a conqueror. It’s got to be something greater than courage, because I’m not afraid to die. Dying is nothing in itself. A little pain, a little oblivion. But
then what? My mother wasn’t afraid to die, and she was not physically so courageous. But she had something bigger, something that lifted her above any physical fear. It is not fear of the pain of death that makes people afraid to die; it is fear of what comes after. I am not afraid to die, but I wonder if I know much about what comes after. Do you? For, after all, whether in war or in peace, we all have to die, and we all need to understand and be ready for what comes after.

  If you and I expect to spend eternity together, we should look into this and be ready, the way we used to have to prepare for a lesson or an examination that was coming. You and I always used to be prepared, didn’t we? Perhaps you are ready for what may be ahead, but I don’t feel that I have been, so I’m studying. Will you think about this? Because we don’t want to take any chances of missing the great things that are ahead for us who love one another. Will you think about this, too, so we shall be one in thought? We’ll only be preparing for an eternal joy; and together, I trust, dear love. Don’t let this make you sad. It was just something I felt ought to be said between us. You have all my love.

  Yours,

  Charlie

  Afterward, as he thought it over, he wished he had not written that last letter. Would it seem desperately gloomy to her, put a damper on her ardent joy? Yet, of course it was something he wanted her to know, his feelings on this great subject of death about which they had said so little. But it was too late to do anything about the letter now. He had put it in with the rest of the mail as soon as it was written, and he did not wish to go through the routine of trying to get it out again. No, he would write her another presently, in the morning perhaps. A happy letter, without a reference to death, and try to dispel the gloom.